132 comments:

Yes, the sinking of the Titanic was big and important too. The traditionalists that had fought a Depression and been in a massive 4 year total War and then seen Nuclear Fission Bombs going off knew what mattered was victory. A simple concept that escapes King Obama I is that there is no second place. All of his Bowing Down only gets us attacked sooner rather than later. Not that there would have been anything left to save once the great CO2 is pollution Robbery of all robberies had finished us off before real scientists began to ask questions.

That's some beautiful concern trolling Althouse, using a dead person as a prop. Really, comparing the man who got us to the moon to the party who thinks we can't build a tunnel? What are you people smoking.

The Kennedy -Sorensen democrats were proud to be American, but the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democrats and their followers seem ashamed to be Americans. As a grateful immigrant to the USA, living in Ann's hometown of Ann Arbor, I am constantly amazed at how disdainful and critical of America the people on the liberal-left of the political spectrum can be. They actually HATE AMERICA!!!!

well Shouting Thomas when it comes to big and important things we will not be looking in your direction.

why don't you make list for us of "big and important things" that we do as a nation and that rally the nation AND meet with your approval. Would you do that for us so we have some idea where you are coming from other than the otherside of a moat.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. JFK's traditionalist generation knew what Sorensen meant when American presidents said"the buck stops here." The Obama/Pelosi/Reid politburo has only recognized " all of the bucks must go through us". That sounds a lot alike , but it is a huge difference. How's your migraine doing Garage?

The writing formula is Now-dead luminary of X wouldn't recognize/feel comfortable with/vote with today's version of X. As an unproveable thesis, it's very handy. But it's really just padding a writing project 'til it gets to some pre-ordained number of words or lines.

HD...What has got into you and Bill Maher? JFK was 100% the force that set the NASA guys free to spend all that money apolloing men to the moon and back. How many Presidents have started a visionary project like that since 1963?

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior.

There is an growing undercurrent of people on the left who seems to not like the idea of American exceptionalism. They think it is fascist or something bad. I think that contigent is growing but it is still a minority.

But that said the Kennedy-Soresen Dems would recognize the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Dems.

garage, is Christie scrapping the tunnel because they don't have the expertise to build it or because he doesn't want to spend money on it?

This is what I love about liberals like garage; their devotion to a Democrat President who up to that point did the biggest tax cut in history, presided over a failed attempt at regime change in Cuba, took us to the bring of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and got the ball rolling with our involvement in Vietnam.

Kennedy didn't get us to the moon. LBJ did. He pushed the space program long before Kennedy ran for President. Kennedy made some fine speeches written by Ted Sorensen but Johnson was the man behind the program. (I believe that Sorensen actually wrote "Profiles in Courage" as well)

Just for kicks who was more intelligent Kennedy or Nixon? (No cheating on wikipedia)

The framers uniformly believed that standing armies were the greatest threat to liberty -- that's why the Constitution limits to two years the funding of armies.

Free labor markets have been an expression of American individualism and a contributor to American dynamism.

Corporations as we know them today did not exist until a century after the Declaration of Independence -- at the time of the Framers man and master were on a par. "Free labor markets" mean little against the concentrated power of the Fortune 500.

Hoosier Daddy and FLS are agreeing on dissing JFK's accomplishments in the same thread...the end of the world may come sooner than we thought. My opinion is that those guys are still jealous that JFK who had Jackie was also nailing Marilyn Monroe while the were still in High School.( For you youngsters, Marilyn was what a true Goddess looks like). Heck, even Bill Clinton had great respect for that particular accomplishment of JFK. In politics it is often whom your daddy knows. Joe Kennedy was tight with the Mob from his liquor running days, and the Bush boys' daddy was tight with the CIA and Prescot Bush's German industrialist connection. In the end, poor Marilyn was not tight with anyone.

Is that what the last two years have been? A pissing contest with the past? "The Kennedy Democrats insured the elderly? Well...we'll insure EVERYBODY! The Kennedy Democrats had a debt-to-GDP ratio of 55%? Well, we'll have 95%! And it'll go higher! They put men on the moon? Well, look out proxima centauri, here we come! More money!"

You can see why this need to out-do the past quickly breaks down. Come on, fellas. They're dead. You're showing who's boss just by walking around breathing.

fls, are you seriously suggesting that the Republican Party has moved to the right, since the days of Nixon and Kennedy?

How so, exactly?

And please, no vague references to racist bogeymen in the Tea Party. Just tell me the specific policy positions of the modern Republican Party, that make it more in line with the John Birch Society of the 1960s, than it would be with the Republican Party of the 1960s.

That's nonsense. That's an "I'm rubber and you're glue" argument. You might as well accompany it with "Neener, neener, neener."

FLS...The Birchers are a semi-religious cult that recruits weak minded libertarians. Just because they know how to counterfeit Reagan Conservatism is no more an argument against Reagan Conservatives than the existence of counterfeit $100 bills are reasons to throw out your real money. From a Bircher perspective Reagan was also a dupe of the World Conspiracy that only Birchers were smart enough to see.

are you seriously suggesting that the Republican Party has moved to the right, since the days of Nixon and Kennedy?

No moderate like Eisenhower, Nixon (father of the earned income tax credit), Rockefeller, or Ford could get nominated today. Bush, Sr., had to temper his moderate views, even though he had served Reagan loyally as VP for eight years.

Brent Bozell's Conscience of a Conservative, published under Goldwater's name, brought conservative ideas into the GOP mainstream, where they took root and grew.

Crack...I hope you are kidding. The John Birch Society is a mind control cult using the exposure of Secret Communists as a pride based recruitment tool for the profit of the Prophets that have made it all up.

Who wouldn't rather own an exceptional American Chevy Malibu than any third rate socialist BMW ever made?

You mean a Malibu built by Government Motors and the proud remnants of the UAW? And you think that example is illustrative of proponents of American exceptionalism rather than the trend in the other direction?

The John Birch Society is a mind control cult using the exposure of Secret Communists as a pride based recruitment tool for the profit of the Prophets that have made it all up.

I'm an atheist. What's the likelihood that anyone who defends my ideas ain't gonna be caught up in something I don't agree with? Not likely. People on the Right are talking about Ayn Rand now and hardly mention she started a cult. My point:

Y'all believe in so much crazy shit, I've got to take any sign of intelligence where I can find it, and just reject the rest.

Nixon was an establishment liberal Republican. He is the author of the modern American welfare state. If anything, the Kennedy's were more involved in McCarthyism then Nixon. Nixon was an independent anti-Communist whose position was vindicated by the Venona intercepts (a good thing since the Reds out murdered the Browns 10:1)

Crack...Take it from this friend that the Bircher's doctrines will entrap a mind and not set a mind free. When everyone else starts looking to you like a foolish pawn that is not in on the latest secrets of enemy activity, then run like heck out of there. Why would that type of thinker ever accept your talents and thoughts as equal to theirs? Life is too short to let people abuse you for their bragging rights.

FLS...So what was George W Romney? He was always a proud GOP social liberal, but anti-union. But that happened before Nixon used social issues to shift the South from the more tolerant Democrats over to the party of Lincoln. Tricky Dick sure was a smart fellow. And no wonder Mitts found it so easy to become a Massachusetts Governor.

FLS ...We southern auto workers resent that disrespect. While it is true that we build the new Typhoid SUV by Hyundae in Alabama, and yes, it yaws to the right at high speed; but we definitely still have our Pell grants for Agra school over at UGA.

I mean we put Tony (I am not a homo even thought I broke up with Jessica Simpson)Romo out for the season. The Eagles only have a dog killer at QB. Pittsburghs QB is due to rape someone new and be up on charges. And Brett Farve is suffering from vaginal discharge and bleeding or something.

As far as local & state government handing out tax incentives to BMW or other auto manufacturers: It's the product of states competing to get the plants located in their state and the jobs that come with it. If you don't like it, you can get involved in state politics.

As far as the NY Giants, I simply hope that we won't see Manning vs. Manning in the Super Bowl. We Mississippians wouldn't want to see the Manning family split asunder.

My old man was a lifelong, ethnic, blue collar Dem. He was born the same year as JFK[1917]. My father saw just how much of a phoney, crook, weasel Nixon was from the beginning. When Nixon gave the Checkers Speech, mentioning his family as cover, that's all the first generation Italian had to see.

My father died in 1989 and said he saw the Dem party start to unravel when JFK was killed. He would not even recognize it now.

FLS: As usual The Washington Post does not serve us well. The new hires do not stay new hires forever and the $15 hourly quickly goes higher. It is commonly understood that the cost of living in South Carolina (coastal areas excepted) are lower than they are in high cost Munich. The Two hundred and fifty million dollar subsidy to which you refer has implications far beyond the BMW plant itself as you will see when you google the economic growth in the counties surrounding the plant and note the new businesses created after the plant opened. The tax intake from the area would be a place to focus your research skills (which are clearly and evidently more developed than writers for the WaPo) to see whether or not the plant was worth the subsidy. You might conclude it was more investment than subsidy.

I grew up a Giants fan in Ct. My old man would take me to Fairfield U. to watch them train during the Allie Sherman days. We got to see a few games the year they played in Yale Bowl when the Hoffa Stadium/Grave was being built. Living in Wi. since 1983 I've evolved[devolved?] into a Packer fan. I got a longtime friend from Boonton, NJ coming out for a frozen tundra battle on 12/26/10.

FLS: "if government handouts in exchange for jobs is OK on the state level (BMW, Honda, Mercedes, Toyota, Hyundai), why is it not OK on the national level (GM, Chrysler)?"

There is a distinction with a difference. The handouts in the GM and Chrysler cases were to failing companies with existing plant and equipment in place. The state subsidies were to have the companies deploy tens of millions of dollars into plant and equipment that did not exist before. The GM and Chrysler stories are of employees having their jobs saved. The other stories are of jobs created.

GM and Chrysler had plants that were fifty years old or older with suppliers and infrastructure already in place. Their failure to have a sustainable business model impacts negatively on those who built up around them. The new plants are built for companies that have a model that is succeeding and suppliers will follow them thus creating new jobs.

Trooper...That is pretty big talk for a fan of a Tom Coughlan coached team. The Falcons are still in this Bowl thing that we have been told happens every February. That is a long season for the Falcons. We do wish that we had been able to keep Detroit's duo of Matt Stafford and Calvin Johnson here in Georgia. That is the curse from 10 win seasons...no playoffs much, but no really high draft choices either.

spinelli - I grew up in a household that worshipped FDR. Those immigrant and first generation ethnics were wrong. The Democratic Party was already heavily influenced by the hard left in the 30's and made the great depression magnitudes worse than it had to be. The rot began way before JFK.

FLS: You seem like a nice person. You could use some coaching in economic matters which I gather you recognize. I would not recommend that you get the coaching from people with agendas like the guy from "good jobs first." His is not a credible point of view and to associate with him diminishes your status in any discussion on economic issues, modern manufacturing, trade or (probably) arithmetic.

JFK seems to be one of those ambivalent types--he did have some great rhetorical flourishes; however, he also boinked Marilyn Monroe, East German spies, and mafia molls--He was a walking penis who puts bill clinton to shame: all bill got was a blow job from a zaftig maiden--Marilyn Monroe? Monica Lewinski? Kennedy was also probably high on pain killers because of his back problems.

From a policy standpoint, Kennedy almost got us into a nuclear war with the USSR based on his lying campaign rhetoric (the missile gap), did get the ball rolling in Viet Nam, and kept a low profile during the civil rights days--probably because J Edgar Hoover had the goods on him. He was strong on defense, and cut income taxes--More republican than today's democrat--in terms of his overall policies--and like Bill Clinton in terms of sexual excesses.

The state can't afford billions of dollars in projected cost overruns, and he won't raise taxes to offset the expense. He questioned why New Jersey was expected to foot so much of the bill, compared with New York and the federal government.

"I'm not having the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey pick up that tab," he said.

New York would be wise to entirely fund the tunnel from New Jersey to ensure the flow of workers to the jobs in Manhattan that it taxes to the teeth. Manhattan's insane rent control laws made it impossible for working people to actually live on the island so they are compelled to live elsewhere though they continue to be taxed in NY. Wall Street could easily relocate to the western bank of the Hudson. Perhaps it will.

Michael: your points are, of course, well taken--the downside is that the state of New York (and the substate, NYC) are governed by the same types of idiots that assert they govern California. With similar results--hell, a city that cant deal with bedbugs isnt going to do particularly well with infrastructure issues.

FLS names a couple of projects that came in under time and on budget. The Empire State building was built in less time than it takes to get a building permit in NY today.

FLS: I think the challenge is to name a project that has been on budget in the modern era, since the advent of strict zoning, nimby thinking, environmental regulations, etc. I think you knew that, but nice quick response anyway.

Roger J: Point taken. But I will say that real estate projects on Manhattan island are executed with grace and precision. You can walk by a project for 18 months and then one day it is open, reaching into the sky. Deliveries done at night, staging areas off the island, it is quite remarkable what the private sector gets done against stiff bureaucratic resistance.

Gotta run, but appreciate Michael's and FLS's comments re infrastructure projects--I do subscribe to Michael's point about modern era infrastructure but I didnt frame my question to FLS with that caveat--So FLS got me fair and square.

Sportsfans, the ONLY reason Nixon went left on domestic issues was as a sop the the left so they wouldn't gut the military budget out of pique--which they were (are) fully capable of doing if provoked as their natural inclinations trend that way anyway. This was "log-rolling" in the classic HS text-book civics style. Nixon felt--rightly or wrongly--that such left-wing programs could always be reigned in or eliminated later,but that if we lost the arms-race/cold-war to the SU nothing else would really matter. Protecting national security came first in Nixon's eyes and if that meant giving the Donkeys what they wanted domestically to keep them from savaging the defense budget, so be it. If Nixon had had a Republican Congress his domestic program would have looked far different.

Why would Christie want NJ residents have ready access to good jobs in Manhattan

I'm not sure if you've gone between NJ and NY recently but the fact is that there are plenty of ways to do that. NJ Rail is a pretty good way to commute and you can do it now without any new tunnel.

I'm all for infrastructure spending if it is done right. That tunnel is not right. We finally have a politician who is willing to stand up and stop buying his votes and he still gets flack (because he has an R next to his name).

If a faster way to go from NY to NJ would be beneficial, my suggestion is to spend an astronomical $100 or $200 thousand on ticket machines a la Grand Central Station so the people don't have to line up for those zombie ticket agents at Penn. Sta.